


Hopes and Dreams Rondeau

by Anaya_of_Wolves



Series: Healing a Heartsong [4]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Anger, Bad Dreams, Dissonance (creatures), Experimentation, Experimenting on the Dissonance, Friendship, Friendship Power - Freeform, Gen, Heartless (Kingdom Hearts) - Freeform, Heartless Attacks (Kingdom Hearts), Inspired by Music, Male-Female Friendship, Musical References, Non-Binary Original Character(s), Not Re:Mind DLC compliant, Original Character(s), Original World(s), Post-Kingdom Hearts III, Power of Friendship, Scientific Curiosity, Searching for answers, Summoning Keyblades, We are getting to a plot, slight angst, somewaht
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-12-11
Packaged: 2020-10-05 01:28:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20480705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anaya_of_Wolves/pseuds/Anaya_of_Wolves
Summary: As Sora and Harmony work together, enjoying their friendship and the peacefulness of Symposia-Operani, something else is beginning to stir up.  Soon enough, they encounter what might have led Sora here in the first place.  With not only the beginning threat of Heartless, but the darker truth about this new world is starting to come to light for him to experience and for others to re-experience.  In fact, what all he might have known before coming here actually come back as useful information in order to handle this new threat.  A long forgotten truth, memories, and those thoughts that nestle in the back of people's mind are slowly becoming illuminated by not just these creatures presence.Sora slowly is now finding himself in the middle of what might a new problem to help with, or one he just may have ended up causing in the first place.But was he necessary to cause such discordant among the harmonies of this world, or the test for those harmonies come to an end?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, I really didn't have much of a plan for this fic, at first. I wanted to focus back more on the concrete plot of what is going on, but I didn't know exactly what I should focus on. What ending up starting was first with the antagonists and then what is really going on that Sora and Harmony are slowly finding out. I suppose you can say that things are definitely picking up now. I hope you all leave kudos and comments if you want, ask whatever you want. I still don't know how long this fic is going to be, but I do know that it is going to end up in some interesting place~
> 
> Please leave a kudos and/or comment if you enjoyed~!

_Our Hopes and Dreams, we do not forget.  
_ _No matter how much we think and fret._

_~ / ~ / ~ / ~_

“Interesting.” The voice that muttered the one-word phrase sounded softly pleased in their results. A purr in saying the word coupled with how silent the speaker became after uttering it.

At a desk nearby, cluttered on one side of the surface with stacks of files and papers, the hunter kept his legs propped up on the available space left and picked at the underneath of his nails. A bored look sat on his face like a permanent fixture underneath dark blond bangs. No matter what was said aloud, it didn’t drag his attention away to appear to even care to listen. 

He had finished his job and just wanted to get back to work. To get back to finishing up said work. It wasn’t like anyone else was going to do it anyway. So, that left only him and him only to go out there and stop the growing plague rising up against the harmonic songs and sounds of everyone and everything.

His eyes flickered up briefly to look at how the scientist buzzed about more tubes of those new creatures that he had brought in. 

Not only just dragging in the racket-making Dissonance anymore. 

No, apparently, the scientist _needed _these dark, shadow-like creatures too for their Harmonizing plan. They claimed that, with these shadow creatures’ appearances, marked a further step in dealing with the first problem of the Dissonance.

But that is where the hunter lost the reasoning on how that was supposed to be. Even if they both believed that Dissonance had no place in the natural order of the universe that they knew of, they didn’t pose an actual physical threat -yet. Because the Dissonance, as much of a curse of Song and Silence, didn’t do what these shadows creatures did. 

Killed innocent people, or at least that was the best idea of what apparently happened when those people were attacked. They would fade away into nothingness, leaving a floating heart behind that soon disappeared as well.

Each time, every time, the same thing happened once the shadow creatures attacked.

The first few times it had happened stopped the hunter in his tracks. Watching in morbid fascination, a pulse of fear came over him, which hadn’t been felt in a very long time. That fear also caused him to attack and destroy that creature before it could do so again to another innocent person. He believed that to be the best course of action, the correct one. 

What use would it be to allow it to continue on?

Only when the hunter had told the scientist of what happened did they demand to see one captured and brought back.

The hunter didn’t believe that that was right, but the scientist, convincing as they are, informed him that those creatures might lead to their goal. Or, rather, more to the hunter’s pursuing goal and the end result of the research for the scientist.

Now, multiple hourglass-shaped tubes held within a plethora of either the many abominable forms of Dissonance he had captured or these shadow-like creatures. These tubes, stretching from ceiling to floor and connected with many other tubing and wires, decorated the lab in a way that tug at the long-forgotten sense of dread within the hunter’s gut. An eerily familiar sense of dread that made him itch to leave this place, rejoin those he trusted to hunt the Dissonance.

“I know you hate them so, Ostinato, but please remember that they are for the good of our orderly cause.”

Echoing throughout the lab, the scientist’s voice drifted like the last breezes of wind before fading once more into stillness. 

The hunter Ostinato snapped his attention away from staring at those very creatures mentioned. He felt enough emotion in his heartsong than he would have liked to at that moment. His eyes then moved over to the scientist, wearing an oddly pleased look on their face, and soon answered that look with a rolling of his eyes back to studying the containment tubes.

Why he dealt with such a person wasn’t something Ostinato even knew the answer to.

“I wouldn’t say that I “hate” them, yet, Syncopation,” Ostinato gruffly muttered back, glancing back to the nearest tube filled with those dark creatures instead of those that already held tight to his hatred, “They are just so...bizarre.”

Unaware and only hearing the smirk through the tone of the scientist’s voice as they answered back, Ostinato heard the other say, “Yes, they truly are.” Their back was still towards him, facing away and almost admiring those creatures they were looking at.

Ostinato had to look away from such a posture, finding it unnerving as much as those creatures looking between both of them. The nearest tube that he watched contained a few Dissonance that he had hunted within Symposia-Major just yesterday. Not many compared the outer cities of the kingdom, but it worried them nonetheless. It worried them both that it could mean that the capital of their home was slowly being plagued with these creatures. No matter if they sent out people now to help them more, to help track down these creatures. More continued to crawl up from whatever Silence-forsaken place to wreak awful noise upon them all. 

These Dissonance even had the gall to appear to look like orchestra conductors, musicians, and even dancers!

A true mockery of such professions and what they represented.

Ostinato clenched one of his hands, while the other hand drifted down to the sound-blade strapped in the sheath against his thigh. The urge to stop those discordant creatures once and for all rose up like bile in his throat. It was not a challenge for him to do so, not with how most Dissonance were only a foot to four feet high. So easy for a person such as himself, someone proven to be able to handle such a feat.

The sight alone now triggered him into such rage. 

But it hadn’t started that way. 

Oh no. The rage started when he first heard what _sound _the Dissonance made.

_That _was what tipped him over the edge to want to personally destroy each and every one of these creatures. The sound they _created _belonged to the worst nightmares of any person of a harmonized heartsong. A sound and song not worthy to be even called such things! Worse than the worst imagined noises possible. They shouldn’t have existed in the first place. Of course, it also begged the question whether or not the sounds created the rage in their purpose or result of hearing it. But, to Ostinato, it didn’t matter which influenced which first. There shall be an end to these creatures.

That was the reason for the Harmonizing plan, and the reason that Ostinato took his job to hunt them down so personally. Because he did not want anyone else having to hear those creatures ever again. 

He was no alone in such regards. Not only with Syncopation, others too that offered their help in destroying these creatures. They sensed and heard what sounds these Dissonance created and wanted to end such sounds. Ostinato found it so very fortunate and a clear sign from Silence and Song that they were on the correct course of action. If others agreed that Dissonance were too chaotic, too much _noise_, then surely it meant that it was their duty to handle such creatures. 

Easy as a simple rhythmic beat, this is what Ostinato felt was the ultimate goal for himself and the research of Syncopation. Even if they wanted to learn so much more, he still knew where their loyalties rested.

“Professor! You are needed upstairs!” a young adult’s voice called out, echoing through the lab. It had come from up the lab’s only set of stairs that lead up and out. The doorway, at the top of them, had been dark, before quickly being illuminated by whomever turned on the lights and must have called for Syncopation. But no one appeared to come to the doorway, to peer down into the lab’s bowels to see what was truly going on down there.

Syncopation let out a long sigh, rolling their shoulders, before straightening their back. They turned away from the containment tube they had been watching to face Ostinato, still seated at the desk with the look of barely contained rage under a false sense of neutrality. They only could sense such emotions by how much they had been around him. So loud was that rage in his heartsong. Almost enough to nearly warrant an experiment to compare its sound in his heartsong to the effects it would have on the Dissonance and these shadow creatures.

An experiment for another time, they finally silently decided without a word.

Then the sliver of one of Syncopation’s dark eyebrows rose up, before they frowned and made a shooing motion with their hand, “Well? Go and collect more specimens, while I deal with my class and students. Report back anything strange you might see.” They clasped their hands back behind them once more.

“‘Strange?’” Now it was Ostinato’s turn to frown at the vagueness.

“Yes, strange,” Syncopation curtly repeated, walking briskly towards the stairs as they continued to speak with more of a lecturing tone in their voice, “I have a feeling and a hypothesis that might prove correct about these two different species of creatures appearing rapidly now in succession with each other. Something or someone triggered that, which makes me curious to know who or what did. _That _is what I mean by “strange.””

The hunter snorted out a breath of air, rolling his eyes before removing his feet from the desk to stand. Of course, the explanation explained nothing to him that he hadn’t already thought. But he wouldn’t let himself think better to get sloppy with his work just because the other thought he might be a little more _uneducated _than them. Oh no, he would make sure that whatever or whoever was causing this would be stopped, along with all these creatures.

Those same creatures watched as the both of them left the lab. Yellow, glowing eyes even in the pitch-black darkness of the room illuminated the tubes that kept them trapped. At least for the shadow creatures. 

The Dissonance continue to cry out in their own tubes, banging and screeching against the glass, but to no avail of getting out. Trapped, at least for those lucky enough to be trapped here instead of at the end of the hunter’s blade. But how lucky was it for a creature of sound to not be heard, to not be able to share such sounds to others to hear? That was almost as cruel as the containment.

_~ / ~ / ~ / ~_

_ Syncopation’s Log: Concerto No. 64 _

_ I do not wish to say this, but I must record it. I have definite “feelings” as though what is occurring has happened before. I am well aware of the concept of “déjà vu,” however the believability of such concept leaves much to be desired. However, there is some grain of such a concept nestled in my mind, apparently. Because I can seemingly recall how these apparently sprouting from nowhere and no song creatures have been here before. I do not know how I know of this or why, but the feeling still drives me to think that they and I are connected. Fascinating, since these creatures, these Dissonance, prove the very nature of the beliefs held by many and how ignorant those beliefs are in all that they lack in understanding._ _  
_ _ To believe that such noisy creatures are natural and therefore a part of the “Great Song of Creation” leaves one such as myself to think that we know nothing more than what is easily passed down. I shall continue my further research into them. They will not be an unknown for very long._

_Syncopation’s Log: Concerto No. 71_

_ It has been two days, four hours, and twenty-three minutes since I lasted remarked on the mnemonic occurrences whenever I ponder about these Dissonance. Again, I feel as though whenever I look at them that there is a sense that I have dealt with them before. Nothing I can recall, of course, in any fine detail. Nothing in my submitted papers or past research suggests that I have either. My logs, up to a certain point, clearly hold no other information either. Further in time from a point, though, there appears to be a corruption in the saved data files of such dictations. I will have to attempt to remedy that or simply allow whatever it was to be lost to the bowels of computer catastrophes. If it was important, then the drive to recover them would be present. The only inclination of what I may feel as “forgetting something” comes only from my observations of the Dissonance I have contained._

_ Curious, because that means that I could have repressed memories about such creatures. Further leading me to believe that I have maybe stumbled upon a mystery in which I am uniquely familiar on. Now, if only I can remember what it is._

_ Syncopation’s Log: Concerto No. 73 _

_Tunes and rhythms are ingrained into our memories due to the patterns presented in the musical sounds. Patterns are repetitious enough to become easy to recall._

_Maybe, just maybe, the noises created by the Dissonance can be ingrained into memories far longer than one can specifically recall them. No matter how chaotic and noisy those sounds are, the brain remembers their sounds, not the patterns of noises that they create._

_ But what does it remember about them?_

_ Or course, what could be created if such sounds were put together into a harmonic state? That would be another experiment to undertake, though I do not know if there would be a need to know. However, curiosity is one bedfellow I do not wish to ignore, after all._

_ Syncopation’s Log: Concerto No. 109 _

_ Tempo has claimed I am obsessed with my research. They claim in hard gestures of sign language that I have become too involved with my research of the Dissonance and what/where they come from. As if it is a subject to just ignore! Of course, they do not understand the value of my research. If they are _so _concerned with what I am doing, then for how long would it take for them to finish their own work when not wasting thought on mine? I do not envy how little they appear to care about the research they are trying to accomplish._

_ The fact that they are of the Royal Scientific-Musicological Section has not escape my understanding of “irony.” I hope to one day prove to Her Majesty how foolish of a choice that had been, since she is supposed to be the “Guardian of the balance between Silence and Sound,” whatever that might hold in regards to the Dissonance._

_ I am trying to help us, our world, our very nature of harmony and the Song. Why would that be something to not undertake?_

_ Why would it appear that only I am so very curious about such a subject?_

_ Syncopation’s Log: Concerto No. 117 _

_ I remember a name trying to come back to me. I think it is one I should remember. Why can’t I remember?_

_ Every time I look at the lone, captured Dissonance I have contained, I feel like I am forgetting something important to know. Something about them that I have longed since buried in my subconscious. Well, more to that of a person, I think. Maybe that, though still I do not know where to go from there. I do not entertain many, and my students are all accounted for. So, someone missing that I would know seems strangely unlikely, but still the feeling persists. _

_But what or whom am I forgetting?_

_ Syncopation’s Log: Concerto No. 128 _

_ IT HAS ESCAPED!!! MY ONLY SPECIMEN OF THE DISSONANCE HAS ESCAPED!_

_ HOW COULD IT HAVE DONE THAT?! IT SHOULD HAVE NOT BEEN POSSIBLE!_

_ Syncopation’s Log: Concerto No. 128 a _

_ The lone specimen that Ostinato captured has returned. Fortunate return it was, at least for my research. The creature even appeared to be confused on its arrival back in the soundproof test chamber. Hopefully that means that it will continue to remain there, rather than do another disappearing act once more. I can’t let my only research specimen escape, not when I still do not know all that I want and need to know from it._

_ However, I am also very curious as to how it escaped. I did not hear it breaking the glass -which also wasn’t broken to begin with. No sound either, though the glass prohibits that so that I do not have to hear the dreadful noise the creature produces. So, the question still remains on how it managed to get out. And then subsequently return._

_ I have a hypothesis that could be tested if it tries once more that disappearing act. Because it occurs to me that it could be going to wherever source spawned it. Now, that source would be an excellent piece of knowledge to know. A place of more Dissonance, allowing me to further my research by leaps and bounds._

_ Where could that be? What could it be? So many questions unanswered and waiting to be answered._

_ Syncopation’s Log: Concerto No. 144 _

_ Ostinato brings me another Dissonance that he has managed to NOT exterminate this time. I praised him on managing to accomplish that, though he took it about well as every time I typically do so. He is eager to eradicate all of these chaotic creatures. I do not blame him nor wish to hinder such endeavor, since that is my ultimate goal._

_ Yes, I do wish to understand these creatures. I am a scientist at heart. But, the use for knowledge is to ultimately use it. And I intend to do just that._

_ They are not normal creatures, at least not that I believe so. Everything in our world is ordered in a harmonious balance of sound. From the wind to all people. Heartsongs can be detected, measured, and corrected if becoming too “dissonant.” There is a reason for all of that. So, therefore, these Dissonance must not be natural-forming, or at the very least, acceptable creatures to allow to remain._

_ Syncopation’s Log: Concerto No. 148 _

_ Euterpe._

_ That’s it. The name that had been resting on the tip of my tongue._

_ I don’t know why I had forgotten it, though it still leaves a question in its wake. Just who is “Euterpe”? That is another question that I do not have the answer to. But I am happy that I finally remembered at least that name. It had to mean something for it to have been nagging at my memories so much. I just wonder if it is a good sign or not that I now remember it in the middle of my research and hunt of the Dissonance._

_ Syncopation’s Log: Concerto No. 166 _

_ It appears that we may not have a single infestation problem on our hands. If Ostinato is to be believed on his work -which has not been proven false yet, of course- then there appears to be another subset of Dissonance or another creature species altogether beginning to appear in some of the smaller towns._

_ I have informed him to capture one of these creatures, which has then led to him informing me that they are not so easily tracked or captured. I scoffed at such ignorance to persistence, telling him so. He took the insult to heart, vowing to -should his usual hunting nature not take too much to his heart and kill these creatures._

_ I am curious as to his description of such creatures._

_ “Shadows. That’s what I saw before it attacked someone. Living shadows from the ground.”_

_ Interesting._

_ Syncopation’s Log: Concerto No. 166 _

_ Ostinato brought me a “Shadow” finally. It is a curious creature, in the ways that are morbid than peculiar. How the other managed to accomplish such a goal escapes me, for now. All he replies that he did so with some cost. Such obtuse man. But, nonetheless, I now have this test subject along with the Dissonance. My research is surely to make some greater leaps and bounds now. All there is to do is study and experiment. What I love to do._


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woo boy, was this like pulling teeth to get written. Mostly because I just kept getting sidetracked with other things and because I only had somewhat of an idea of what was going to happen with Harmony and Sora. I am feeling alright about this chapter, though it was hard not to put in a ton of other stuff as well to help explain what is going on. But all in due time I suppose.

_We sing about our Hopes and Dreams in our songs and hearts,_  
_Even songs fade, hearts break, and when we all from sleep depart.  
__They always remain with us as a lasting silhouette._

_~ / ~ / ~ / ~_

The streets were oddly devoid of people at this time of day. The birds in the trees sang with far less melody and volume than their usual daily concerts. The town held a subtle vacuum-like feeling to it, like the air had become thinner than usual. But nothing really appeared to be out of place. It all appeared to be peaceful and tranquil as always.

Sora walked along the sidewalk through Symposia-Operani, glancing about him with every step he took to see if there was maybe something he was missing. A detail to investigate on why there was such a strange feeling in the air, since no one was around to ask about it.

Shouldn't there be people out?

Usually, there was. From stoops and steps, to within the windows of brick houses, there should have been someone where there was now vacancy.

He rounded the nearest block corner, walking along the strip of sidewalk belonging to the market street. Small stores lined both sides of the street with different colored, hanging signs outside the building. Each one apparently empty as of right now. Even the air felt stagnant and silent. Sora shivered at such silence, crossing his arms tight over his chest. He wasn't cold but definitely felt uneasy now at how deafening quiet it was. 

Never, during his time here, had it been so very quiet.

What had caused it was still unknown to Sora as he continued taking cautious steps down the sidewalk.

“STOP!”

The piercing screamed word stopped Sora dead in his tracks, eyes wide as he stood still. Slowly, he glanced around again, wondering where that woman’s cry had come from. There was still no one else around him or down the street either way. He swallowed thickly, wondering if he had just misheard it or imagined it. 

Sora began walking once more down the street, scanning around for any threat or anyone else that might need help if they had been the one to scream out. Once he made it a few blocks down, he noticed some shifting movement in one of the tight alleyways between one building and the next. He stopped to peer down the way and noticed a very familiar sight that had him rushing into the alleyway before he had a plan of attack.

It was a Shadow heartless, small but still dangerous to those that couldn’t summon keyblades or magic. The woman it frightened was shaking as she crawled backwards to get away from it, bumping against the brick wall in the process. The heartless advanced on her, pouncing closer to slash at her arm held up in defense.

“Don’t worry! I will help!” Sora yelled out as he soon ran into the alley, holding his hand out to summon his keyblade before the heartless could attack the woman on the ground again. He willed with all the Light in his heart to summon it, to call forth the protection he could offer those of this world he found himself in. He had to keep them safe from the heartless threat, because that’s what made him a hero. 

Otherwise, he would be that dull, ordinary boy that Xehanort-

_Come to me, please!_

But nothing came to his hand. 

His hand remained vacant, empty of anything he could do to stop the heartless from attacking the helpless woman again. The keyblader skidded to a stop just as he got to see the woman’s body disappear into the dark mist and her heart floating up into the sky. Sora’s eyes watched in wide horror.

He could have- he could have saved her! He should have saved her! The keyblade chose him to help those that needed help, and he promised that he would! But now, that promise shattered in failure at the sight of the Shadow being the only one remaining besides him now.

Then the heartless turned it’s bright, yellow gaze onto Sora, meeting the teen’s wide, horror-shocked gaze. Heartless never gave away any other emotions or expressions, driving on the pure desire to consume the Light that exists. There was no way to know why it was here, other than its hunt for those with hearts. The heartless took one jerky step forward and then another, before pouncing closer at him. 

Sora felt paralyzed, unable to do anything as it got closer to attack him. All he could do was run the same, horrified thoughts over and over inside of his mind. That he wasn’t strong enough to summon his keyblade again. That all that he had done was worth nothing if he let another fall to the Heartless. The truth that he had always feared had come true right before his eyes. A deep fear in his heart that he wished wasn’t there and hid so well from those that he cared about.

That, in the end, he wasn’t enough of a hero to be even worth of carrying the keyblade in his heart to fight against the Heartless.

Just as the Shadow sprung its attack at him, claws ready to slash at his body to get to the Light and his heart, Sora closed his eyes. Foolish choice of action against an attack on him, but he felt it necessary. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to become a Heartless again since he had failed being a keyblader.

Maybe his friends would forgive him, maybe Riku would forgive him and not blame himself for Sora’s mistakes- 

. ~ . ~ . ~

Sora gasped awake from the nightmare he had been ensnared in, thrashing momentarily in his bedsheets. His upper body jerked itself up from the air mattress, and his lungs heaved in and out pants of breath. The fight against the sheets stopped once he was able to breathe properly and think. 

About where he was, how he was safe, and that there weren’t any Heartless around.

Of course, such thoughts came with a price. The thoughts of how there were no Heartless around right now, in the darkened room that belonged to his still sleeping friend. Those thoughts reminded him keenly what his _dream _had been about. 

A nightmare that repeated itself behind his eyelids every time he closed his eyes. Even for a moment, the scene of the woman losing her heart, burned into his mind. A brand to stay there in permanence of the failure he soon began to feel. As though he wasn’t doing enough, not strong enough, not enough of the hero he wanted to be in order to get back to those that needed him now. That after everything that happened with the Second Keyblade War, he still wasn’t enough to do anything by himself.

Sora felt a rising bubble of sorrow from deep within his chest. It traveled up from his heart, slowly creeping up his throat, before reaching his eyes and stinging them with the future of tears.

His friends were his powers.

He believed in them, connected with them, and found that keeping them safe meant that they would do the same for him. Because it was the right thing to do, unequivocally so.

But what if that still wasn’t enough? What if he was still not strong enough to be there for those that needed him? Trying again and again to keep everyone safe from the Heartless, Nobodies, and everything else that threatened to hurt others. Was he really someone who could change that? Change the course of pain for others, just because he wanted to?

Sora just didn’t know if he had the power to anymore.

Softly and slowly, he rested his back once more against the air mattress, listening to the soft sounds of the night. The occasional twinkle of the windchime in the open window, the distant sounds of animal or person, and the soft breathing of Harmony still resting on the bed all lulled his mind into a numbness that began to help the growing sadness. Like a blanket over it, Sora could still feel the pain resting underneath.

But, for now at least, he could close his eyes and get more sleep. He fancied getting more sleep than to remain painfully awake through the rest of the night, staring up at the ceiling. Hopefully, his sleep could be blessed with a silent nothingness or dreams, rather than a haunting nightmare.

The woman’s screams from his dream still echoed in his ears as he faded back to sleep.

_~ / ~ / ~ / ~_

The Rubato River’s current flowed by today like a sluggish melody, creating enough background noise for Sora to try and concentrate in summoning his keyblade. After the nightmare last night, he figured that he should try. Just in case he needed to protect someone, taking the nightmare to be more prophetic rather than a result of the deep fears he had deep inside of his heart. The river offered a good spot to try and to practice if he was able to summon it. Harmony had accompanied him here, knowing what he was trying to do but not the worried reason behind him.

Sora glanced to her out of the corner of his eyes, feeling like he should have said something to her. About the nightmare, about his worries of Heartless appearing, about wishing he could go back to everyone else that he missed so much. Keeping things from her, even personal ones, felt as though he didn’t trust her enough to tell her. 

But telling her meant sharing all the fears and doubts plaguing his heart. 

That meant he _needed _even more help from her.

A sour feeling of being an ungrateful friend coated his throat. It kept him from saying anything in the end, even though a part of him did want to say something to her. Sora found himself a bit more grateful that she hadn’t caught onto his internal struggles. It left him to try to figure it out for himself first. Though he still glanced over to her to check to see if she looked still alright with being out here with him.

Harmony sat nearby, just enough to give him some space for what he was trying to accomplish. Her legs were crossed and provided a steady surface for the notebook she was absently marking in. It wasn’t like most notebooks he had seen before. Harmony showed him earlier how one page was blank, artbook paper and another was a blank sheet music.

For those that were artistically inspired by music, and vice versa.

The thought of Naminé came to him with a soft wave of sadness, hoping that she managed to find freedom. He had tried his best to hep her, to return all that she had done for him. But, in the end, he hadn’t even official gotten to give her his thanks like he promised to do. One more thing that he failed in doing.

Sora let out a sigh to himself, lowering his hand down to his side. He had been trying so hard, focusing so hard, but continued to find his focus slipping away just as easy. There wasn’t the absence of the feeling of Light in his chest where the keyblade came from. Nothing would respond to his call out for the need of it. Usually, an attack managed to get the weapon of Light to summon in order to protect him. But there were no threats around to cause that, leading Sora to have to try and summon by himself. Which just left him back at the beginning of his problem in the first place.

Which was just frustrating him more!

“Gah!” Sora huffed out, dropping to the sandy banks of the river to sit there and stew over his anger. He propped up his arm to rest his chin on his raised, balled fist. 

Thinking over how he felt when he summoned over his keyblade before, Sora tried to imagine what it felt like. Imagining the power and concentrating on that might bring it back to his hand once more. The weapon hadn’t been taken from him like it had been in the past. This time, it was...something else. 

But, after a few minutes of sitting cross-legged and thinking, Sora found no answers or results. Just numb legs and more frustration.

Sora let out another huff of air and laid down on the sandy shore. The skies above him were a bright, cool blue with rolling white clouds slowly making their way overhead. It was serene and peaceful all around him in this world. He could almost hear the sounds that the peace made. There wasn’t a peaceful silence here, the opposite in fact. As he watched the way that nature moved and created its own melody, he focused on a particular sound amongst it all.

Soft humming, like the wings of a hummingbird, caught his attention. A quick turn of his head answered the unasked question of where it came from.

Harmony, deep in thought with how much she was scribbling down in her book, hummed a tune that appeared to be more at random than one she heard before. Sometimes the hums flowed together, and sometimes they jumped around from high to low. Open mouth singing of sounds rather than words, to close mouth beats that had her head bobbing to the music she made.

Sora watched her while she continued, soon turning his head to look back up at the sky and joining along. Softly at first, before he began matching her hums and singing and adding ones where she left quiet. It was a playful duet, more out of sync than in.

But there were times where they were perfectly in sync.

A harmony between them that carried on like a well-versed dance. One beat here; another next that complimented it. A joining of their songs, before one would take a lead and spin the next few notes. A symphony created by the two of them for themselves, no one else. Magic flowed through the air from their created song, forming nothing visible but a sensation of happiness and fun that felt nearly real. It conjured up the thoughts of sweetness, of summer heat, of vibrant colors splashed on a blank page.

Simply incredible, Sora thought lightly, almost as though he didn’t have any real control over himself as he sang along with her. That would have worried him, was he not aware of where he was. There were no threats around here, leaving them in peace and sing music together into a fantastical song. This world was also filled to the brim and then so much more of music! To fully feel a part of that music and sound felt too good to stop.

That deep feeling in his chest felt so very similar, like the power to wield his keyblade. A strength from within that bonded to others to grow.

Sora lifted up his hand to wave it in the air to the beats of the song they created. Swinging it from one side to another, up and then down, letting it move to how the music sounded rather than any true plan to it. He remembered the young apprentice Mickey doing the same while wearing Yen Sid’s magical hat.

A swish out, then pulling his hands together to raise them up, and bringing them out and-

A flash of bright light blinded Sora for a moment, before a weight settled in his hand in the light’s wake. A shadow casted down from above in a shape that shielded his eyes from the sunlight. He blinked a few times before quickly sitting up with wide, surprised eyes.

There, resting in his hand once more, was a keyblade.

_Musical Union_, still, but a keyblade no less!

“Harmony, look!” Quickly, Sora began to turn himself around, pushing up onto his knees to do so. But once he faced her, his excited face fell for a moment when he saw her. 

She was looking down at the sheet music she had been writing on. It was covered in large ink blots that even he could see from where he knelt. He was finding it hard to read her current expression, hidden partly under her dark hair that had fallen forward into her face. Of what he could see was a thin line her lips with a small tremble.

Just as he opened his mouth to ask what was wrong, the look on Harmony’s quickly vanished away to be replaced with a bright smile on her face when she looked up to him.

“That’s great, Sora! I can’t believe that you got it to-”

**LAAA SCREEK FAA CRASSHHH**

The bellowing of a chaotic mess of noises made both of them wince and quickly glance around for such a source of messy sounds. Like a cat trying to sing and hitting a lid pot at the same time, which was the best way Sora thought to describe such sounds. But whatever had made that noise, apparently wasn’t around them even though it had sounded like it had been close by. The river continued to lazily flow by, the grass gently moving with the soft breezes, and the distant sounds of life in Symposia-Operani gave no location to an outlier of sounds that had just been created.

Also, as quickly as the sounds came, there was a silence that followed it that felt like it was sucking out the air in Sora’s lungs. A heavy silence that sat fat in the air, even between Harmony and himself.

He glanced to her, maybe thinking she might know what had caused it, but she apparently was still looking around a bit more for the noises. With such a distraction, he was able to see a fluttering of emotions over her face. The confusion from the startling sound faded into worry. Concern took hold next, and then lastly was a lingering of the look of someone on the cusp of remembering something. Harmony looked like she was trying to remember something tied to that clashing sound. But soon even that look fell from her face as she glanced back to Sora, making his shoulders jump a bit in being caught staring.

“Uh, do you…” his voice stuttered a bit, stopping to allow him to swallow before finding a voice that wasn’t so nervous, “was that something you heard before, Harmony?”

A silence answered him back as her dark brown eyes met his own blue eyes. It was as heavy as the silence after that strange noise; one that was putting him on edge even in the presence of a friend. Sora wanted to look away and to open his mouth to say something to break the silence.

But both were done by Harmony instead.

She lightly shook her head, a few strays of her hair falling loose and swaying, “No, I don’t think so.” Her voice held that unsurety, but Sora didn’t want to upset her further to pry for more even if he so badly wanted to help her out. Help her figure out what she might not remember and what was causing her to still look, well not particularly happy or sad. A neutral middle ground. 

But he just nodded his head in response, flexing his hand and belatedly realizing that _Musical Union_ was gone. After a few failed attempts in summoning it again, Sora laid back down on the grass, feeling like this cycle of failure and sadness and a glimmer of positive was starting to become never-ending.

_~ / ~ / ~ / ~_

Sora tiredly blinked his eyes open, blinking a few more times to allow his eyes adjust to the darkness in the room. Well, semi-darkness since he asked Harmony to at least keep a nightlight plugged in. After the Mark of Mastery, dark rooms after awakening from sleep had always left him more anxious than refreshed once awake.

Sleepily, he began to wonder what had woken him up. It hadn’t been anything in his sleep, since his dreams were blessed void to his memories now. The soft sounds of distant life in the dark hours of the night came through the open window, along with soft twinkling of the chimes of the windchime brushing against each other.

Sora was about ready to close his eyes and fall back asleep, before he heard the softest noise coming from inside of the room.

The sounds of sniffling, of silent crying.

This time his eyes opened wider, waiting and listening more to the sounds he had heard. More sniffling and even a wet hiccup broke the peace of the night with each sound. The sounds carried child-like sadness, and Sora couldn’t stop himself from sitting up after listening to them.

When he did, the sounds immediately stopped. Sora glanced over to Harmony’s bed and saw two eyes, puffy in the pale dim light of the nightlight, staring wide back at him.

Neither spoke. The silence of the night returned to blanket them both, only broken up by the occasional twinkle of the windchime hanging in the window. Sora didn’t know what to say to her, besides feeling that intrinsic need to comfort those that needed it. That he himself would smile and wave off because he knew he had to be there for his friends instead. But something in her gaze, those dark brown eyes wide with almost a fear of having been caught, kept him from speaking and moving. They looked resolutely trapped without hope of freedom.

Something about them almost felt..._familiar_ to him. In a way that Sora just could not remember how.

“Harmony-"

“Sorry for waking you up.” 

Both spoke at the same time; their whispering voices blending together in the night. A moment more of staring at each other occurred, before Harmony broke the stare by rolling over to put her back to him now. Nothing else was said then, apparently nothing wanting to be said either. Sora continued to stare, even if it was just at her back, and waited a moment or two doing just that.

Then he began to shift over to the bed on his knees, stopping at the edge and resting his arms on the bed. That was all he did, not wanting to invade further into her space. But he did want to present himself there, as someone to talk to or simply _be there _for her.

“What’s wrong? A bad dream?” However, instead of a verbal answer, silence greeted him once more like an old friend between them. Sora frowned, but he was not deterred from continuing to softly talk to her. “I’ve had really bad ones before. Ones where I thought that they were more real than anything else. Where I thought that I wouldn’t be able to escape from them.”

Memories scratched at his heart, reminding him of just how close he could have been lost. Because he hadn’t been strong enough to fight against the Darkness and those that wielded it. So close, but yet he was still here and whole. Well, he hoped so.

Sora picked up where he had momentarily stopped, a soft smile on his face as he remembered who helped him through those dark nightmares of a test, “But my friend, Riku, he, uh, helped me through them. I really can’t thank him enough for that. He was like a light in the darkness-”

Immediately, Sora stopped reminiscing, feeling the warmth left in its wake of thinking over his best friend and all he had done for him, when Harmony quickly rolled over to face him. His wide-eyed gaze met her sadden one.

“Sora, do you ever feel like a part of you is missing? Like someone you once knew or a song you once remembered?” Harmony’s whispered voice sounded frantic, as though she couldn’t speak fast enough to get out all the thoughts in her head. The expression on her face matched that tone as well. “That no matter what you do or try to find out, you just..._can’t_!” Her voice grew slightly louder, making Sora wince a bit at the volume so close to where he sat, but it quieted down by the time she finished.

After she finished the rush of words, they both sat there staring at each other in silence. Sora tried to partset just what she had said in such a rush and what she was trying to mean. Harmony worried at her bottom lip, meeting his gaze before glancing away and back; not really able to pick a spot to stare at.

“I,” Sora began, gaining Harmony’s attention once more, and swallowed heavily as he nodded, “I do. I understand. I actually feel it right now. Just an emptiness, where my friends are supposed to feel. It doesn’t feel right, like a part of me has been taken away.” HIs hand slowly rose up without thinking about it and sat above his heart. The very same heart he had been regrettably ignoring of its pain now.

Sora sighed softly, eyelids fluttering shut for a brief moment before opening up to look back up at Harmony. “I don’t know how to fix it or what happened. But I-” A heavy lump formed in his throat, losing track of what he meant to tell her. Something reassuring, he was sure of it. But now he couldn’t even get through his own feelings, which made him frown deeply at how selfish he thought that he was being now.

Softly as a gentle breeze, Harmony breathed out, “Sora, I didn’t know…”

“No,” Sora shook his head, finding some strength within himself to push words pass the lump in his throat, “I know. It’s-”

“It’s not alright, or fine.” Harmony’s voice was now more than a breath of a whisper. It held a conviction now, now for him. With a rustle of the blankets being pushed away, Harmony began to sit up now, wiping away at the drying tears in the corners of her eyes. “You’re hurting, have been since you got here, haven’t you?”

Sora swallowed heavily, knowing that she hit the nail on the head with him telling her those words. “I, yes. Not really hurting, just...missing those that I care about too. Then again, I suppose that is a kind of hurt too.”

“I’m so sorry I haven’t noticed while you’ve been here. I have been having so much fun having you here, with both Melody and Symphony being so busy with their work, that I didn’t-”

“No, Harmony,” Sora shook his head with a soft smile on his lips, reassuring her with the same kind of softness, “you’ve been a wonderful friend.” He meant it, smiling to her and waiting until she returned the smile back even though it took her a few seconds to do so. He could see the reluctance there in her face, but there was also the belief in what he told her as well. 

Even if they both felt like they hadn’t been the best friends they could be. They also were just people, able to make mistakes and not notice every fine detail about each other. It also didn’t help when they kept things from each other for whatever reason they may have for doing so.

“But you’ve also been hurting as well, Harmony.”

A deep silence sat heavy between them, like a lounging fat cat not wanting to move from a warm spot in the sunlight. The desire to look away from him warred heavy in her gaze. Sora could see it, the way they widened and how still she became. But something about how Harmony remained looking at him, keeping his gaze, made him refuse to skirt away from continuing to speak. His gaze offered her a silent strength to speak her hurt to him as well.

“Sora, ever since you got here, these feelings of forgetting something, they got _stronger._” His brows drew together, not really knowing how he could have caused something like that, but he remained quiet to let her continue. “And I don’t really know what that means or what to do, because I can’t blame you for something I don’t know about. But it does feel like it is growing, and that scares me.”

Harmony alternated between worrying her bottom lip between her teeth and panting lightly through parted lips. Her eyes dropped low, growing distant for a moment. “Because it feels as though maybe when you’re gone, I won’t remember that I am forgetting something, or that I won’t remember you.”

“Harmony,” Sora reached out to her in her worried state, softly taking one of her hands that had been clenching tightly to her pajama pants and nearly did not give up the hold, “Whatever happens, whatever is going on, I promise you this that no matter what, I’m going to be your friend and help you out.”

Harmony laughed wetly, wiping at the tears in her eyes with a freed hand from his light hold on them, “You don’t even know what is going on either, Sora! What could you do? What could possibly either of us do to find out what we don’t know?”

He gifted her with a smile just as brilliant as the stars in the night sky. “That doesn’t mean I will let a friend down. Maybe we both can find out what we are missing, instead of trying to figure it out separately and not talking about what’s wrong with each other.” 

He lingered on a pause, before closing his eyes with still that soft smile on his lips. Words he had been told by Orchestra came to him from his memories, knowing that her words weren't just for him now. They both needed to hear them.

“Like Sound and Silence,” Sora opened his eyes back, meeting her gaze, “because that makes a song. Right?”

Harmony looked stunned at his revelation, before she nodded her head once and smiled right back to him with a smile as bright as her voice sounded. A renewed happiness on her face revealed her belief in him, his connection tying to music.

“Yeah, it does. You’re right, Sora. No matter how chaotic or harmonic, together it’s still a _song_.”

“Right.”

The soft sounds of the evening, the twinkling of the windchime in the window and sounds of nightlife among the streets of Symposia-Operani, finally entered back into the small room of Harmony’s. Like a tide flowing up against the sandy shore, the sound returned to blanket them both now instead of the heavy silence from before. With the soft sounds, like the notes of a forgotten song, returning, both told each other “Goodnight” and crawled back under the covers of their separate beds to fall back asleep and into the dreams for them to find peace instead of pain and tears.


	3. Chapter 3

_When Melodies are created, a Harmony is there.  
_ _When the Silence comes hither to share,  
_ _there will be a Noise to for it to join.  
_ _All that is left is the Key to be the quoin._

_~ / ~ / ~ / ~_

"Okay, okay, so the keyblade appears when we…" Sora gestured between, filling the loss of words with the motion and to highlight the somewhat closeness between where they sat on the floor of Harmony’s room.

Some of the previous mess had been cleaned up to allow them some space to settle down, though most of it had been either pushed to the sides or stacked up nearby to them as in need of use. One of the notebooks that had been scattered about was opened and sat between them. Already sketched on one page was a rough picture of _Musical Union_, curtsey of Harmony. The rest of the page was filled with small notes written by both of them that traveled to the next page.

Harmony glanced up from her notebook she had been scribbling down in and finished Sora’s sentence, "When we are in harmony. At least musically, that is."

"What does that mean?"

"Hmm,” she raised her hand and pushed it up under her lower lip, “well, usually songmates would be the answer.” A quick shake of her head dismissed that thought from her mind as quickly as she said it. “But it isn't like that."

Harmony went back to humming in thought, eyes looking off into the distance as she did. Sora gave her a confused look at her easy dismissal of such an answer, knowing that they might have to think over every option that came to them. Though he doubted anything with the Organization or Master Xehanort stretched this far, he still wouldn’t say that they didn’t caused at least a part of it.

Would he have ended up here otherwise?

When Harmony glanced back over to him, just as Sora opened his mouth to ask more about ‘songmates” and why that couldn’t be a reason, he quickly earned himself a flat stare from her that kept him quiet in answering.

“Songmates are like...well, usually indicate strong bonds of love. They are the ones you sing your perfect song with, however it is meant to be sung,” Harmony’s voice softened up as she spoke about the term in such softly, reverent tones “You usually, well, Melody and Symphony are songmates, if that tells you anything more about it.”

A deep bright blush took over Sora’s cheeks, making him duck his head and mutter back, “Oh, yeah, no. Got it.” His embarrassment in almost asking why they wouldn’t be earned him soft laughter from Harmony.

Of course, Harmony and him couldn’t be songmates. There was nothing wrong with her, however. She was sweet, kind, and super friendly to him and those that she called her own friends. She offered to let him sleep in her room and helped him around the city and with his fears and problems now. All that would make anyone feel cared for as a friend would do.

But what she said about “songmates” really made Sora think of another. Someone who, through thick and thin, had been there, deep down, with him. No matter what. Someone who had helped him stay strong, reminded him what mattered most, and always was at his side. The one who had a bond that felt like that, of a forming of a song together in dreams and creating a keyblade that he could swear he hear music play when they summoned it together. 

So, maybe it wasn’t songmates, Sora mentally agreed, since that title belonged to another.

Still with redness on his cheeks over such thoughts that he hadn’t given much time with all that had happened to him -with Xehanort and the Second Keyblade War-, Sora didn’t skip too far away from similar thoughts. Even if Harmony and him weren’t songmates, maybe there was something else, something similar that could explain why the keyblade appeared at certain times.

A connection between their hearts, perhaps?

"What about...a connection between hearts?" Sora asked, looking down at the sketch of _Musical Union_ and trying to recall the feel of its place in his heart.

All keyblades he had wielded before felt different. Small differences, that let him know that the power he was wielding was unique to each keyblade. Even his own _Kingdom Key_ felt that way, though its power gave him the sense of _being_ protected too. That had always given him strength to keep going with Donald and Goofy along their journeys. _Musical Union_ was no different.

The keyblade's look reminded him immediately of the world, while the core presence felt like a song stuck in his head with the few times he had summoned it. A snapshot of this world at a key moment for him to wield in order to defend it. That's how it felt to him those quick beats he had managed to summoned it.

A sharp whistle caused Sora to jerk his head up, staring wide-eyed at Harmony as he felt still a little lost in his thoughts. Half of her lips formed a scowl, before it morphed into a more playful grin upon her lips. Sora pouted at her before not being able to stop himself from grinning back at her.

"A key for your thoughts?" Her voice had softened, prompting, and didn't just stop after asking the question. "Because you sounded like you were onto something there, Sora. What kind of connection do you think it could and would be? Is that something normal for those from your world?"

_Not just mine. Everyone I've met, on so many different worlds, all have a connection in my heart. No matter what._

_And Xehanort used that connection to weaken my heart and possibly send me here or somewhere similar._

They way those thoughts felt in his mind gave Sora the sensation of being swept out to sea in a storm. A darkening sky and murky waters, hiding the destruction that was to come. He knew he shouldn't let them affect him, but there felt a truth to them that he couldn't deny. A certainty that he gleaned from her questions and help.

"It is, somewhat," Sora found his words almost seemingly hesitant to be spoken now compared just minutes ago. "All of my friends, everyone I meet, I know that they are connected with me. No matter what and where I go. Because of the bonds that we share, keeping us all together and strong no matter what. Even if I just met them, I know I won't forget about them or not help them when they need my help."

A subtle movement from Harmony caught Sora's attention as he spoke. He watched as she rubbed her hand against her chest, over her heart.

"Wow," Harmony's voice was softly amazed and somewhat faraway sounded, "that's incredible that you can do that. Bond so easily to others."

Sora opened his mouth to correct her, to tell her that it wasn't just him. That everyone he met had those that were bonded together. No one was really alone. Harmony shouldn't have such a downcast look on her face, he thought to himself as he was ready to tell her just that.

But then they both heard their names being called from outside the room and down the stairs.

"Sora! Harmony!"

It was Melody, which made both of them get up from the ground to see why she called out for them. Harmony toed the notebook they had been working in closed and nudged it off to the side of her room before heading over towards the door to the bedroom. After a quick look over her shoulder at Sora, she gave him a thoughtful look that he couldn’t quite understand the reason for.

Before he could ask before they went downstairs, she was out of the room. Her footsteps down the stairs got him moving, heading after her out of her room and down the stairs as well. His eyes glanced to the pictures that hung on the walls as he walked down the steps. Having seen them before every time he went down the stairs, Sora hadn’t really noticed until now the subjects of the photos that littered the wall.

So many people, several that lived in the house he was staying in, and many different forms of occupation that he noted. Though, one of the photos caught his eye as an odd one as he got down to the bottom step.

“My family is full of musically-inspired people,” Harmony interrupted his thoughts, though helping to inform them as he wondered about the one picture his gaze lingered on, “from the arts to even the scientific branches. Music has been strong in our heartsongs.”

“Am I going to have to sing a ballad before you two make your ways in here? Unless you watch cold lunch!?”

Harmony turned away from looking at the pictures, smiling softly to herself as she answered her older sister back, “We’re almost there. Hold your note, Mel’!” An answering soft chuckle of laughter then came from Symphony. 

Once Sora stepped inside, hearing without really paying attention to what Melody was saying, he took note how Melody and Symphony moved around each other in the small kitchen. Their bodies appeared to know the space the other took, and their voices even flowed together as though they were singing. Melody’s voice would draw out a vowel, and Symphony would echo the same vowel when she spoke. They even appeared to share quick glances, while Harmony would say something and then nudge whichever was close enough to her when looks shared between the two women lingered longer than a few seconds.

_Songmates_, Sora thought, smiling at the scene and feeling as though he was slowly understanding what Harmony meant about how that term couldn’t explain the full reason on how he managed to summon _Musical Union_.

But something about the sight of these two songmates did make him think that maybe it wasn’t the _entire _reason for him being able to summon his keyblade with Harmony.

_~ / ~ / ~ / ~_

The Rubato River slowly became the spot the two spent their time practicing.

More specifically, Sora spent most of his time there trying to summon his keyblade. 

A few days had passed since they started discussing his situation fully and without keeping anything from the other -bar some of the darker feelings that neither wanted to expose the other to. Each day, after Harmony would return back from her schooling, they would both set out towards the river outside of Symposia-Operani and sit together to talk and try out something to summon forth the keyblade. The connection between music shared between them and summoning the keyblade was tried and tested, but nothing ended up happening when they both their minds into doing so.

“Maybe it isn’t musical harmony that summons it,” Harmony mused, flopping back to lay down on the soft green grass before the river’s shore. The bright sun above bathed her in warmth and light, making a smile of similar warmth curl up on her lips like a content cat.

“We were so sure, though,” Sora muttered dejectedly, frowning as the latest test failed together. “Both times before we had been making music together when it appeared. Why not now? We didn’t sound that off together, even though you couldn’t stop laughing at me!” That earned him another snicker from Harmony, who soon tried to hide it behind a grin on her lips.

It had been a similar rhyming song; one that Harmony claimed that children started with to help them learn school topics and musical rhythm. Something easy, as though that would make summoning the keyblade the same way.

Unfortunately, it hadn’t.

Even with Harmony’s prompting, about his rhythm and pacing, Sora still felt as though they weren’t in sync. Voicing it even, which made Harmony pout fiercely as though she knew that and was trying her best to remedy it. He then felt bad and tried his best to harmonize with her, trying to remember how it felt before when he had. But, even when it felt like they were harmonized in song, nothing happened.

A lingering silence lasted between now. A stray gentle breeze wandered by, washing over the grass like a wave before carrying on. Peaceful to those that would need it, a sense of calm settled in the breeze's wake.

“...are you even trying?” Harmony's voice, soft and carrying, flowed with the wind like a sailboat on the current. There was a tone to her words, hinting at a meaning more than what she was saying.

But what she meant was lost to Sora at the moment. As he quickly glanced to her, a frown formed on his face at just how much her words and tone didn't match up. He also felt a little hurt by what she said and wondered if it was even fair for Harmony to say that when she had to know that he was.

“Huh? What, of course I am-!”

Harmony sat up, shaking her head after she had. A few pieces of grass drifted out of her dark hair, settling back on the ground where they had come from. Her gaze met his, and Sora found some of his confusion and slight hurt lessen when he saw that she didn't look like she was trying to be hurtful.

“_Listen to me_," her voice this time had definitely taken on a singing quality like Sora had heard before, "_Are you even trying?/ Because I want to know._”

“Oh," he muttered after a small delay as to what was going on came to him. Even if he didn't fully understand _why_ Harmony was singing her question, he knew he had to answer back similarly with his own answer.

What that answer would be made Sora pause to think it over.

A quiet moment between them lingered, with Harmony still looking expectantly at him for his answer, before Sora softly sang back in a way that felt far more comfortable to him than the practice they had done previously, “_Of course I am trying/ Trying my best/ Because if I don’t try with all my heart…_” Sora's voice petered out after managing to get those few lines out.

Harmony, however, shook her head rapidly and rolled her hand for him to continue singing instead of growing silent. When Sora didn't immediately start, she huffed and opened her mouth to sing again. But something in her soft frustration made him think that maybe he shouldn't keep quiet like he had wanted to after admitting what he had.

So, Sora began to sing again, letting the words pour from his heart this time instead of thinking over them.

_I have fought against those that have hurt  
_ _Against those of Darkness  
_ _and I don't know if I am enough to keep going  
_ _Because my friends  
_ _…  
_ _they are my strength and now I gave my all for them_

Sora tilted his head back, staring up at the brilliant blue sky above. A blue even he knew since childhood, because it was a blue that sat in every sky.

One sky, shared among all the worlds. Never spread thin and always bright.

_But I'm not alone  
_ _Never had been alone  
_ _I believed it, once  
_ _But now I shouldn't let myself be weighed down by the pain_

_Because I can sing about my friends  
_ _About the good moments, happy smiles  
_ _They are in my heart  
_ _They are in my memories  
_ _I will find a way back to them_

As he continued his song, not really focusing on what he was singing about and simply _doing_, Sora arose to his feet. He felt taller, even if he hadn't grown physically. His whole being felt lifted up as his voice rose. The music, the sound, and the harmony were like friends. They supported him as he continued with the song in his heart.

_Because there is a way back to them  
_ _Like the song in my heart  
_ _Leading me back to them  
_ _Finding my way back to them_

Sora pulled his hand towards his chest, closing it into a fist as he did. The balled fist rested upon his heart. A warmth deep within his chest welled up, bubbling up like the notes he had sung did. That warmth traveled from his heart into his palm.

He then pulled his hand away with the last fading word of his impromptu song, and a trail of lights like notes of sheet music trailed after his hand. Once fully extended, a bright flash of light consumed his hand.

In its blinding wake, _Musical Union_ stood up proudly in his hand.

Sora held tight to the monochromatic grip, feeling how solid it was. He could swear he could hear a hum in his ears, a resonating humming coming from the keyblade. Like it had heard his song and was singing back at him in response.

"See," Harmony's voice cut through his concentration on the keyblade, making him glance over to her grinning face, "sometimes a good song is just what the healer ordered. It wanted to be let free from your heartsong to join the rest of the Song. I bet that's why your keyblade didn't come before. It felt lost and didn't know how to sing along with the rest of music around it."

Sora thought the explanation from Harmony felt more personal from experience, but the joy in the summoning overwrote asking her just now. For now, at least. He would ask her after making sure he could summon this keyblade as easily as he was hoping to be able to. Because the belief in her words made him think that he could.

He unclenched his hand and willed the keyblade to disappear back to his heart. 

With a flash of Light, _Musical Union_ did just that.

After a moment of pause, another flash of Light preceded the keyblade returning back to his hand. Sora could _feel_ the keyblade now, more than he had before. This time he could sense its pressure in his heart like the other keyblades he had wielded before. That gave him some relief that this was now something he wouldn't be struggling over anymore.

"Let's go show Melody and Symphony!"

Sora felt Harmony's hand around his bicep, tugging him in the direction back to Symposia-Operani. She appeared overly ecstatic with the progressed he, that they both, had made today. A Light from her, shining bright, felt similar to how the Light from _Musical Union_ felt.

As they both hurried back towards the town, only when Sora felt the crawling sensation run up his back did he remember to let his keyblade fade from view. They were at least twenty feet from the nearest building before the keyblade shimmered away with soft musical notes in the air. Sora glance around as they entered the town, wondering if anyone had seen it.

A few people were walking the streets here and there, with pets and loved ones. No one really out of place among the buildings and peace of Symposia-Operani. Sora glanced about still, giving waves to the older women who sat in cafe chairs outside under awnings sipping from teacups. They returned the wave back with delighted smiles on their lips. Under the shades of the planted trees along the way, a person could lean against the trunk to hide away from the heat of the sunlight. 

They walked past a man doing such as that, with the sunlight through the sparse branches reflecting off his fading blond hair. The man’s face tilted up when they passed, meeting Sora’s gaze with his own grey eyes. The teen felt a creeping sensation run up his back again, before glancing away quickly from the man. Sora heard heavy footsteps behind them, but a quick glance back showed that the man was nowhere to be seen. He tried to convince himself that the man had his own business to take care of and didn’t know what had just transpired with Harmony and him. So, he left his thoughts as that as continued along the cobbled sidewalk Symposia-Operani

With how everything felt so in harmony now, Sora knew that worrying now wouldn’t help. He shouldn’t have been worried at all anyway. He had managed to summon his keyblade with Harmony’s help!

Sora just wished the feeling of being watched would leave him along before they reached Harmony’s home.

_~ / ~ / ~ / ~_

Sora knew that _this_ would happen!

He had been really hoping that it would never happen. It would make things complicated, for him and for Harmony and her family. 

After being able to summon the keyblade yesterday, they had managed to make it back to Harmony's home without being stopped on their rush there. Once there, Sora had shown them the weapon he had talked about welding but could never show proof of. Now that wasn’t a problem anymore. Melody, Symphony, and Orchestra had each been impressed at the sight, though Melody brought up the fact that the keyblade he summoned bore heavy resemblance to Symposia-Operani.

It wasn't until he told her the name of the blade that got a frown from her relieved and smiling face.

'_You say its name is "_Musical Union," _Sora?_'

'_Yes. Is something wrong about that?_'

'_No, nothing of the sort. Just...fortunate you were able to summon it, with Harmony's help._'

Sora didn't understand then or even now why Melody's reaction had been that way. She still appeared happy for him being able to summon the keyblade. She also promised, along with her wife and grandmother-in-law, that they would still do what they could in support while he stayed here. But something still gnawed at the back of his mind that worried him about her reaction.

But now that worry was replaced when an even greater worry as Sora found himself exposed, with the keyblade out. He looked around hopelessly for any help, though finding nothing or no one wanting to help him. Not even Harmony, though he would have thought his friend would have stepped in to do _something_ to help him keep this secret from spreading.

Harmony continued to grin at him, hands on her hips, and lightly shook her head when Sora sent her another pleading look.

“I’m sorry, Sora. You attracted them to you,” she teased him, soon watching as one of the nearest children, a little pigtailed girl, tug on his jacket and pointed up wordlessly to the keyblade he held high in the air. The rest all did the same with giggles and cheers that sounded like a chorus.

“Oh please, can we see?” one child asked, jumping up to try and touch _Musical Union_. The little boy’s fingers barely skimmed against the dangling treble clef keychain.

Another young brown with exceedingly wild hair jerked his head rapidly up and down, “Yeah! It looks so cool! What is _it_?”

Sora jerked his head to and fro to glance at all the excited children around him that shouldn’t have been gathered about near the banks of the Rubato River. Or, at least, hadn’t been there before when Harmony and him had gone there to practice summoning the keyblade the next day. Neither had noticed -or, at least, Sora had _thought_ neither of them had noticed- the onlookers, before they were swarmed with the gaggle of children who excitedly wanted to know how and what he had summoned.

“Did you do it with _magic_?”

“What kind of music magic did you summon it with?”

“Are you a conductor mage? A musician?”

“Can you make it look like something else?”

“Hehe! It looks like home!”

One question after another made Sora lose focus as to what was being asked of him. All around him were children who were eager to ask and look at his keyblade. Usually this wouldn’t be so much of a problem. But with what happened leading up to him arriving here in Symposia-Operani and the resulting lack of being able to summon any keyblade, Sora was hesitant to show off, even to these kids. Something made him wary, not because of them, but because of something else he felt. 

A creeping sensation once more up his spine and into his heart and mind. Like he was hearing shrill notes being played and growing uneasy the longer he imagined he heard them.

Sora glanced over to Harmony, once more pleading for help, but soon noticed that her face had lost its playful cheer and delight at the spectacle on the grassy banks. In its joyful place, a look of staring worry clouded over her eyes and mouth. Then she was turning her head a little to one direction and the other.

As if she heard the same thing Sora had only thought he imagined before.

The sound changed then, rising in Sora’s ears far louder than the pestering children. It was still the shrill sound before, like an off-key flute or some woodwind instrument, and it began to repeat itself over and over. A set that started with a rising three notes, before a sharper note, before it began to lower the notes. That pattern was repeated over and over again.

Sora felt transfixed where he stood, unable to really move.

Those notes continued. Rising and falling, like the tides on the beaches back home. A pull out to sea before the rush forward over the golden sand. There was a peaceful, unnaturally so, that sat in those notes and drowned everything out.

Eventually, even the children that had once been playing around him slowly began to stop. A delayed flicker down of his eyes showed that they must be hearing the rhythmically, enchanting music too. Worry bubbled up in his chest, over their safety, but his limbs were locked up in the same position had kept them in to keep the children from grabbing and playing with his keyblade.

The music felt like it was getting closer, getting louder. 

Sora could hear each note, couldn't really stop himself from listening to it. Each note sounded closer than the last, getting so much closer. Even the once gentle breeze blowing before fell silent and still under the flute-like notes. 

So much control in such sounds made Sora wonder a little more about what kind of magic this world possessed then. He had seen worlds that had their own unique power, often times strong enough to be a challenge even against his keyblade and the powers he wielded through it. But the thought hadn’t crossed his mind to wonder about this world compared to those. Harmony had never told him about such a magic nor had he really seen it.

But now, now while frozen, he felt as though he was getting taste of such power that music could conjure. It wasn’t a nice thought to have while immobile to such sounds.

As the crescendo of the notes hit, another sound entered the fray. Like a blast from a trumpet almost, a blaring noise shook away the hold that the breath-blown notes had had on all of them. Sora dropped his still upheld hand, letting the keyblade disappear as he did. All the children appeared to snap out of the strange hold on their minds and bodies together; a few shaking their heads and others worryingly looking around for the source of the music.

Another distant trumpet sound blasted nearby and echoed with the sound of cymbals clashing together. Those two sounds made Sora and the children looking around.

In the distance, closer towards the far edge of the building of the outskirts of Symposia-Operani, Sora could see a figure rapidly running away towards the city. He squinted to get a better look, hearing the children all hurrying away and back to wherever they had originally been playing at in the grassy fields near the bank of the Rubato River. 

As he turned away from looking at the retreating figure, a dash of motion passed in his peripheral. Harmony’s back faced him now as she apparently running towards the city, chasing after the figure. Soon Sora found himself doing the same, though he was more running after her rather than the figure. He didn’t want her to end up in trouble or hurt.

He had his keyblade now! He could be the hero he was supposed to be, help those he cared about now.

Wasn’t that the reason he had tried so hard to be able to summon it?

Sora ran as fast he could after her, feeling his whole body returning back to how it felt during his journey. The few weeks with Harmony and her family left him to not really train or keep up the regiment of running around. 

A pity, he felt, since he was out of breath and bent over with his hands on his knees once he reached her. They both stood on the edge of Symposia-Operani and gained a few glances over to them. For him and how he looked like he had tried to race back to the city, and for her and how frantic she looked around but did not enter the town just yet.

“Where- where are _they_?” Sora heard Harmony mutter to herself as she glanced around, pausing sometimes with a cocked head to seemingly try to focus on hearing. “Where did they all go?”

At first, Sora had thought she was referring to the person who had been playing the music. Definitely not someone who was good, or at least not completely to do something like that to them. They could have easily been worried about him wielding the keyblade, but even that reason didn’t feel right to Sora.

But the inclusion of the word “all” made him think that it wasn’t the person who had been playing the music that had stopped them, but whatever had made the music that help set them free.

“Harmony,” Sora murmured out, his voice still a little raspy from the running. He swallowed hard, straightening his back up and looking around too, “What are you looking-”

“Gone…” she gasped out; her eyes widened as she stopped looking around. Her shoulders fell, leaving her almost as though she could barely stand there by herself.

He frowned, reaching out to softly place a hand onto her shoulder. When she didn’t completely collapse under the touch, he nudged her a bit to get her to look at him. When Harmony’s gaze met his, a smile was offered to her. One that spoke not of something funny but reassuring her instead.

“Whatever or whoever they were, we won’t let them get the jump on us again next time.”

Even with his resolute tone full of confidence, there appeared no change in Harmony’s almost shell-shocked attitude. Her eyes still held the lost look from before. Sora’s smile slowly fell when she didn’t immediately agree.

Something was definitely going on; something wasn’t right now.

But Sora was beginning to worry, was it really just about _him_?


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe I got another fic for this series done! This is probably also one of the most important ones. I had an actual blast both writing this chapter and the rest of them, because I finally got to introduce some stuff and changed up how my plot was going to go. It'll be interesting to see now how my brain will create the rest of the story!
> 
> Please leave some kudos and comments! I'd like to know y'all's thoughts on what's going on!

_Songs are the products of our past and present.  
_ _They need nothing more to be sung.  
_ _For the future will cradle them,  
_ _And our hearts will be, with them, content._

_~ / ~ / ~ / ~_

Riku found himself in that strange music room once again when _something_ happened. Once more, it seemingly happened just to _him_ rather than an event he stumbled upon by accident. That wasn’t the best feeling to have churning inside of him, knowing that rarely anything that happened to him or targeted him did so with good intentions. It was a lesson he had learned quickly the past few years. The latter half of his teenage years were filled with learning who to trust and to rely on those that he knew were his friends in his heart.

But this, this was something too new to grasp whether or not if it was a threat to him.

The music room drew him back to it not by any sound or reason other than a nagging thought that lingered too long or a pull in his heart. Both Riku knew could be disastrous if he didn’t think through what those feelings meant. Already he could imagine Sora in his mind telling him not to be so suspicious of that, if he really knew his heart, then Riku shouldn’t be so worried about following through those feelings.

But it was hard to listen to the Sora of his thoughts when the real one was missing.

Like another bruise he refused to let heal in peace and wanted to keep poking at, he denied himself in following through with those feelings that kept nagging at him. 

Sometimes, it wasn’t even a real feeling he felt in regards to the room. More of an impression, that there should be something there but wasn’t. He barely remembered that feeling from before, when Naminé had needed to strip everyone of their memories of Sora. Like trying to forget something that he was trying to remember why he had forgotten.

Even when the memories were gone, hearts never forgot the impression that made. That was the explanation she gave him.

At the time, he understood it, somewhat. This was, of course, only barely a year and a half of understanding the multitude of worlds, magic, keyblades, Light and Darkness, and his role that he had unwittingly played. Now, another year or so later, it still didn’t make much sense else rather than some forces existed outside of thoughtful comprehension.

For someone looking for their best- looking for someone who meant- their heart-

For Riku trying to find Sora, it dragged up the ugly sensation of being a child and not being told something by his parents. Unfair to deny him the knowledge he should have been old enough and ready to know.

Eventually, he gave in. Riku prepared himself, his heart, for whatever was the source of these sensations in his mind and heart. A ringing in his ear, Riku labeled it as such for now. He followed it, the pull, through the Mysterious Tower and back to the door with the music note carved into the wood. He stood in front of it, back straight and shoulders back. There was nothing, he knew, that could be a threat within the domain of Master Yen Sid.

But Riku wasn’t going to take any chances on the technicality of what was a “threat” and what wasn’t.

He opened the door cautiously, watching carefully to the room as he did. Nothing moved or made any indication of his arrival. Once there was enough room to slip inside, Riku did so and shut the door behind him with a softness of being sneaky. There was no need to, since Master Yen Sid had not told him the room was off-limits. But he didn’t want anyone else to come investigate either.

The room looked the same as before, though apparently Master Yen Sid had instructed the magic brooms to clean up the dust. None of the music stands or music book collections on the bookshelves had been touched. 

Riku hoped that meant nothing had been taken that could help quell rising feeling in his heart and head that was rising like a surf wave. The feeling had definitely grown in intensity the moment he stepped into the room, honestly feeling it rising up on the way here. But the peak wasn’t reached yet, that Riku could feel as he continued to step inside the room and look around.

The symbols still on the wall reflected a tint of magic once more, making his skin prickle uneasily. Just as his eyes swept over the windows that shown the starry expanse outside of the room, Riku _heard_ it.

_Dun dundun dundun Dun Dun dundun dundun Dun_

Riku recognized those notes of sound as well as though he could put his hand up to his chest and recognize the beating of his heart. There were certain sounds that a heart and mind could _never_ forget. For him, this was one of those sounds that got his eyes widening the longer it continued to fill his ears up to the brim with sound.

_The song! Their song! The one that no one else knew because it was their hearts together!_

Riku listened to the beats, one after another, letting his breathing even out to match them. His whole body, once tense for action and reaction, sagged as the calmness from those notes settled in like a warm blanket over his shoulders. There could be nothing wrong now when he heard them so strong inside of his heart.

_Sora_, his mind sighed out as the music continued.

He didn’t notice that he had done so the same verbally.

The name, like one of the beats of their song, drifted out and combined with the notes that continued along like a never-ending ocean horizon. Drifting further and further out to sea until finally-

A flash of Light blinded Riku for a moment. All the notes of the song stopped with the bright flash, leaving a wisp of a caress on his heart as they did so. He wanted to cry out, to bring them back, to be comforted by the only thing he had of Sora’s right now.

But Riku also knew that whatever had stopped the music was probably part of the reason why Sora was missing in the first place. So, all the calm faded into a hardened stance when his eyes adjusted and noticed what had now shown up before him. Once again, there was surprise, before it mixed with a twinge of almost irritation as his eyes narrowed on the little creature now atop one of the sheet music stands.

Its confusion was relatable, but not enough to stop Riku from summoning _Braveheart_ and pointing it at the creature. 

It jumped in surprise when it noticed the weapon being pointed directly at it, but then it began to shake its head. The motion caused the bells on the dips of the funny hat it wore to jingle and jangle in a way that made Riku frown even more. When it apparently noticed the displeasure in the motion, it stopped and even _frowned_ at the keyblade master as though it were sorry for having done so! Then its shoulders dropped as though all the air deflated out of its little body.

All-in-all, Riku was more confused now then upset with it.

“What are you?” he asked, trying to hold back on gritting his teeth and spitting the words out like a Fire spell. The creature looked like as though it didn’t know the answer to that question either, which further stirred the rising irritation inside of Riku.

But then he knew, that anger, unjustly stirred up and kept burning, never led to a good place. Darkness fed off it like dry wood to flames. All it would do would be to cloud his judgement and force him to make mistakes. 

Riku didn’t want to make any mistakes in finding out what happened to Sora. So, he inhaled deeply, letting the slightly musty air of the music room sit in his lungs, before he exhaled it all back out. _Braveheart_ shimmered out of existence and left them both standing there face-to-face now without the threat of violence. Apparently, that was a good enough sign for the colorful creature to start making random noises that sounded happy enough. Riku really couldn’t tell with this creature.

A closer look told him that it was the same one as before, when the humming of his fellow keyblade wielders and friends brought it forth on Master Yen Sid’s desk. Still no emblem on it to give it any tell of whether or not it was a Heartless, Nobody, Unversed, or even Nightmare or Dreameater. But that didn’t mean it didn’t look like it was supposed to be. Something about it still appeared asymmetrical in a way that one could sense from those listed how they weren’t right to belong in any world.

But the creature continued to look at Riku with bright warm orange eyes, almost giving him a _relieved_ look that it was seeing him.

“Where did you come from? What world?” Riku finally asked the question that had been burning on his tongue. Even if the creature couldn’t verbally answer him, maybe some clue would help him reach Sora. Whatever it was, he would take it with both hands.

Because there was no way that this creature, summoned here so blatantly by the thought of Sora, wasn’t connected. He was sure that it was connected to him!

The creature, of course, didn’t answer him with an actual answer of where. It appeared to hop in place, making more noises that sounded like a band shoved into a small space. Riku winced at the sound but managed a small, uncertain upturn of the corner of his mouth. That further _delighted_ the creature even more.

Because, before Riku could even react to stop whatever it might do, then it summoned a bungle from the air -magic, its own brand of magic that Riku didn’t really pick up on but hear the faint sounds of noise that accompanied it- and blew into the instrument. Hard. Loud enough that the keyblader reached up to try to cover his ears to block out the loud sound. Master Yen Sid surely would be storming in any second, wondering what was making that _racket_.

Riku wanted to tell it to stop, ready to do so, but he stopped mid-way through the thought when he felt the pull of magic all around him. In between one blink and another, when the Sound had encompassed all around him and blocking out everything else, the pull on himself _yanked_ him hard to somewhere else.

When the music stopped, Riku realized that around him was no longer the music room within the Mysterious Tower. Nothing around him was the same, and there was no sign of the little creature that had brought him here. Around him instead was computers and machines, similar to the ones he saw within the laboratory of Ansem the Wise and his apprentices.

What was even worse, was when someone dressed in a long lab coat with a mess of dark, curly hair came into the lab, stopped, and just stared with a wide-eyed expression at him.

Riku swallowed hard, glancing around, and wondered if he should just run or try to explain just how he got here even if he didn’t know that himself. It almost seemed too unreal for him, and he was friends with a mouse king! 

But, before he could begin to say anything to help his situation, the person in the lab coat made a motion with one of their hands, bringing it up so that it looked like a fingergun with the thumb pointed at their chin and the outstretched finger flicking twice down. Then the finger moved to directly point at him.

Even if he knew that there were many different languages among all the worlds, even some not spoken, and didn’t know them all, Riku knew enough to know when he was being silently asked “_Who are you_?”

That wasn’t going to be an easy question to answer now the longer the person stared at him, eyes going from shocked surprise to a furrowed confusion and distrust.

“I’m…” he began, swallowing heavily once more and eyes trying hard not to skitter around away from that grey-eyed gaze, “my name is Riku. And I really don’t know just how I got here.”

_~ / ~ / ~ / ~_

Even what happened the previous day still buzzing like a warning from an agitated bee in his mind, Sora and Harmony returned back to the edge of Symposia-Operani right before it flattened out to the soft meadow of bright green grass preceding the shore of the Rubato River. Nothing suspicious was left behind by anyone from yesterday. Neither of them saw anyone who really fit the thought of the fleeing person who had to have something to do with how that strange music kept them from moving. With no leads to go on, both teens dejectedly looked around for _anything_ to clue them in on what was going on.

Sora knew a mystery and adventure when he saw one, though this one kept back the more joyous feeling. Because this felt more like when he had to help his friends out of danger and trouble rather than exploration. His mind already wouldn’t stop reminding him how it, that strange music, had to have something to do with him summoning his keyblade -though probably not because of the children seeing him wielding it. 

A feeling like that meant something important, but Sora was at a loss of what.

Was that person really from this world? If not, then why were they here, and who were they? Did they follow the Light or use Darkness? Was it another plan of Master Xehanort’s if the Second Keyblade War didn’t go the way he planned?

Too many unanswered questions started to make his head hurt, groaning to himself. Sora rubbed his hands against his face and pushed his head back, wishing things would just...be simple now! Too many unknowns, plots, hidden agendas, and the likes! 

Couldn’t anything be easy now?!

“Hey, Sora, come on,” Harmony spoke up then, “you can still summon your keyblade, so it’s not like this is really a step back. Just...another mystery. One that…”

When her voice trailed off, that’s when he removed his hands from covering his eyes. There was that distant look on her face, as though she was trying to remember something, before she shook it away. Sora wondered what she was thinking of, but every time he asked, a similar response was given.

_I don’t know._

_It doesn’t matter._

_I...can’t remember really._

_Something on the tip of my tongue. Give me a moment to think._

_...Nothing, don’t worry about it, Sora._

Each one was evasive as the last, but he respected her wishes every time he was told to drop it. Though he knew she knew he was worried. Of course, that didn’t really _help_ Harmony open up more about her thoughts, but at least he hoped that she knew he was there for her. It was the only thing he felt like he could do -and do _right_\- at the moment.

Sora kicked a lone pebble along the cobbled streets of the rustic town, glancing around absently, and soon began to walk in a random direction through the town. He still gave Harmony a look over his shoulder, silently asking her to follow him. It appeared that she had already thought to do so, or she knew him well enough to automatically follow him. It brought him some relief that she wasn’t going to question _him_ now about where he was going.

Because Sora wouldn’t really have an answer. All he would be able to say was that his heart was leading him somewhere.

Symposia-Operani, reminding him faintly of Twilight Town, lacked the hills that made up the other world but added in more side streets between each city blocks. There almost appeared to be some order to the warm town, like how the music that carried about the city never sounded inharmonious. But even he would have felt lost trying to navigate without the pulling sensation in his chest. It definitely was leading him somewhere, especially when he turned off the sidewalk of one of the streets into an alleyway path.

Behind him, Harmony’s footsteps echoed his in time, but the sound was growing fainter in Sora’s mind. His focus narrowed down to the feeling in his chest. The pulling sensation grew more and more to where he could have sworn someone was pulling his heart out. 

He had to keep going! He just had to keep going and following it because-

“Sora, where are we going?”

He couldn’t answer her, so focused on turning right and then left, ducking through archways behind buildings and sometimes darting across little neighborhood streets. People around glanced over with friendly smiles or confused looks, but no one stopped him.

“Sora, what’s wrong?”

Harmony’s voice didn’t sound different coming from her, but Sora could almost hear something in his ears that added a layered humming sound over her voice. He didn’t stop however, not even when the small thought about how odd that was popped up in his mind. But he was too persistent on following the connection in his heart leading him somewhere through Symposia-Operani to continue the thought thread.

Distantly, Sora noticed how it almost appeared to be like a trail he was following. Never had the connection leading him doubled back or lead down a deadend. A few times, he could have sworn he noticed the opened window in Harmony’s room from the entrances of a few pathways. But he didn’t stop to confirm it himself or speak about it with Harmony.

Harmony, who was still following him, now loudly tried to get his attention.

“Sora!” she said as they exited another one of the backstreet alleyways into the large, open city square of Symposia-Operani -which encircled a large statue of a singing finger with their hand outstretched towards the sky. “Something’s not right!”

He couldn’t disagree more with her.

Something felt completely _right_ right now as he made his way through the small crowds of people around. There were a few street musicians playing that garnered such attention. Their music filled the air with a liveliness that added only to a relaxing afternoon day.

But that didn’t stop Sora as he followed the connection in his heart towards the large statue in the middle of the town square. Only when he reached the base of the statue, finding it vacant of people, did he finally stop. Here was definitely where he was meant to be. His breath caught up with him, thought it took a few quick breaths to even it back out to a normal rhythm. When he did, that’s when Harmony jumped at the opportunity to face him.

The look on her face was one part very upset with him, which he now realized he probably should apologize and explain what he had just been feeling, and another part an almost guarded look, with a squint of her eyes of suspicion that made Sora feel nervous.

“Sora,” Harmony’s tone of voice made him focus solely on her as he listened, “_what’s going on_?” The way she said it, the way the words came out, made him feel not only like a kid again when he got in trouble but also like he was dealing with magic. The tone was not a negotiable one, but not just simply how it sounded. The way it _sounded_ and just _how_ Harmony spoke it nearly made him feel defensive for the first time being friends with her.

Instead of making him want to tell her, the way she spoke to him made Sora feel as though he shouldn’t tell her anything at all.

But, knowing that doing so would probably just upset her more and the fact that Harmony was his friend, he offered her a small smile and explained, “Honestly, I couldn’t really explain just what happened. All I know was that I got a feeling in my chest and quickly began to follow it. It was a strong pull too! Like-”

Like how he could sense where there was a large body of Darkness and Heartless nearby, or when Light grouped itself together when his friends and him fought. Now that he thought more about it, that is the closest feeling Sora could think of that matched what he just felt.

“Like what, Sora?” Harmony asked, her voice softened up considerably now. She also appeared to have realized the mistake in her early words, because now her shoulders sagged low and her eyes kept straying away from his. It worried him just how sad she looked for asking him very valid questions. She shouldn’t feel that way.

So, he tried to explain to her what he meant. “Well, like when-”

Sora stopped explaining when his instincts made him stop and turn away from her. Already he could feel the weight of his keyblade almost forming in his hand in preparation of a battle. His eyes scanned around for danger, for anything that would make him feel that. Before he was just about to dismiss the feeling as something he just had irrationally felt, his quick senses were unfortunately rewarded.

A scream rose up from one of the small crowds of people, and people began to back away from one spot off a small distance away. More cries of fear rose up in waves. A few people were running fast out of the square, while others called out for the guards to come help keep the peace that was being disturb.

It was a clear enough sign for where Sora needed to go now.

“Harmony,” he glanced to her, not yet summoning his keyblade at the distance he was at, “stay here.” Rarely would he need to tell someone that with him, but she wasn’t Donald or Goofy or the King and Riku. She didn’t have any powers to keep her safe. That put more pressure on him to keep her out of the fights he might find himself now in.

Just as he began to argue against him, Sora dashed off towards the sounds of yells growing in number. He didn’t know if he would find any threat he could fight with his keyblade, but he still knew that he could at least provide protection to anyone who needed it. 

It was his job as a hero to do that.

“Excuse me, excuse me.” Sora lightly muscled his way through the throngs of people now gathered about, lamented not wanting to cause any more of a scene by showing off his own abilities. Well, that, and he hadn’t trained any of them recently. Whether or not he could glide above their heads or use the magic of flowmotion on the nearby lampposts wasn’t something he needed to test here and now. Especially with another loud piercing scream broke through the air like an arrow.

A few people glanced away from whatever they were watching with horrific fascination to him with furrowed looks as though he was _interrupting_ them! He frowned at those people before looking straight ahead to his destination. Just as he managed to push pass the last line of people, he noticed what was causing the major distress in the air.

_Musical Union_ appeared in his hands with a twinkling sound, alerting the Heartless now to his arrival.

At least, Sora thought, it _looked_ similar to the Heartless.

The small, dark form of a Shadow appeared to have music notes stuck at different angle all along its body. Like the musical notes had been used as knives to stab at the heartless and did nothing but stick in the inky Darkness. It still moved and behaved somewhat like a Shadow heartless, but something else was still off about those movements. The skittering jerks appeared almost to stop sometimes mid-motion, then move in a completely different way. Of course, that didn’t stop it from advancing closer to the crying child on the ground nearby.

Whatever it was, Heartless or not, Sora knew he wasn’t going to let it hurt a child!

So, he sprang forward with his keyblade in form, slashing at the strange Heartless. Just as he was about to land the hit, it quickly darted to the side and faced him now. As long as he proved to be a bigger threat, a bigger source of Light, then he knew it would try to attack him first.

The Heartless attacked him then after a moment of pause, slashing at him with its usual claws that had embedded music notes in the Darkness too. Sora blocked the attacks with ease, glad that he still retained his fighting abilities after the fight with Master Xehanort and coming to Symposia-Operani. He swung back at the Heartless, feeling the connected hit and grinning at how the creature was thrown back.

“Sora!”

Sora heard Harmony call out his name, but he didn’t dare look away from his opponent. Whatever she needed to tell him; it could wait. He didn’t sense anymore Heartless rising up from the ground, which meant it couldn’t be another one waiting in secret. So, he just focused on fighting this lone Heartless and keeping everyone here safe.

He rushed forward then, taking several swings at the Heartless that mostly hit its small body. A few of those hits landed, while some were blocked too easily by a Shadow Heartless. The way a soft note sounded with each of those blocks made Sora frown as he didn’t quite understand what that meant. That certainly hadn’t happened before in fighting just Shadow heartless.

“Sora, stop!”

He almost stopped with her command, noticing too how the Shadow appeared to waver in its movement to stop as well.

But he couldn’t stop, not in time to land the final blow on the Heartless he was fighting. The last one caused the Shadow to dissipate into trails of wisps, with a low sounding note heralding its demise. An odd ending that had him confused and looking at the spot where it had vanished from. All of this was more confusing than what he had dealt with before. 

The Shadow putting up a fight, but not with the same tenacity that another Shadow heartless tended to use. The music notes and sounds that came from the Heartless. The way that people, now as he looked around, had remained to watch. A few people shook their heads as though they were waking up from a trance.

Even he now felt that there was a weight being lifted off his mind after the fight.

Just what really happened here?

“What was that!?”

“Was that a monster?”

“Who is that boy?”

“What kind of magic is he wielding?”

“Where are the guards?! The healers?!”

With the many different questions being tossed around, Sora found himself now the center of attention, which wasn’t good. He hadn’t really meant to show off to most of the people here, Symposia-Operani, his keyblade or abilities. Donald and Master Yen Sid would have a field day with how much he was breaking the worlds’ order.

So, he quickly offered up a bright grin, hoping that the people around would take that, and darted off when he finally picked Harmony out of the crowd where she had been waiting. Her face showed similar worried over the crowds now looking at the _both_ of them together as they tried to push their way through the masses. A few people tried to stop them, either to congratulate his help in stopping the Heartless or in order to answer questions. But neither of them did, holding onto each other’s hand as a way to not be separated.

As they were about to leave the town square, he heard a few people say to make way for the healers. A look over showed him that the healers had finally arrived to help the child, though they did not look like Healer Synchro had. Even at the distance, still growing by their running, something about them made him want to _stop_. That group of healers looked too different to be considered what he thought would be a “healer.” To stop running away and to stop them from getting nearer to the child that had been attacked.

But it was Harmony’s hand now pulling him along through the streets, leading him back to her house once he noticed the way. She expertly dodged any of the main sidewalks and streets, knowing to keep them out of sight. Of course, he wanted to say something to her, anything to really explain himself or thank her for her help in getting out from those crowds.

But all he could do was remain silent as he watched her run slightly ahead of him. Her head was bent forward and down, obviously to keep him from looking at her face.

Sora didn’t stop to ask her what was wrong.

Because now, there were more things growing right than wrong with that appearance of Heartless. Sora started to remember what that could mean for this world and what it could mean for his friend. A sinking feeling in his gut started to plague him and his thoughts.

Something strange was going with that Heartless, maybe even more than just it. Something was started or had been already started now.

“Where’s the concert, kids?”

Sora glanced up as they hurried along, noticing the passing figure of a man with a messy tussle of hair that had called out to them. He gave Sora a slow curling grin on his face that made the keyblader frown heavily in seeing it. Sora even picked up his running pace to get away faster, though he definitely felt the stare on their backs as they hurried forward to get away. From that stranger, from anyone who might ask him questions, from just the pure confusion that was haunting him now.

_~ / ~ / ~ / ~_

The next two days were tense for the both of them. 

After nearly being caught and basically fleeing before anyone could find out the truth of keyblades and other worlds, Sora felt the constant state of concern and worry rolling around inside of him. He had no way in getting off this world still and now dealt with the thought of having exposed his keyblade to a large group of people. All of that, really, he could take in some stride with his own feelings that continued to gnaw at his insides. But eventually his thoughts strayed to another who _hadn’t_ dealt with any of this before really.

Harmony.

Sora didn’t want to endanger her or put her in a position that would have to explain his appearance or his abilities. 

However, something about this time and that person who had been definitely following them made him think hard over what the next step would be in being here. Something about the way that person had watched them with such a critical eye and even tried to get them to talk made Sora feel...well, _hunted_. It wasn’t really the word he would use, but it still fit the most now.

Not only did those feelings stir around inside of him along with worry, but he could tell that Melody and Symphony had gotten protectively worried over Harmony and himself too. Even when they had to leave for their respective jobs, Melody especially, would linger to remind Sora that he was safe with them and to whisper something to Harmony. Whatever it was, his friend did not repeat to him. All she did in reply with either nod her head once or give a curt answer back before they left.

That wasn't the only peculiar thing she had done over the past two days.

Since they had silently agreed to remain in the house together, Sora found himself witnessing a strange turn in how Harmony acted. With her sister and sister-in-law, her jovial attitude appeared the same. But there was also a strained look in her eyes that even Sora knew they both had noticed as well. But no one spoke up with Harmony about it. She just moved about the house almost like she didn’t want to be there but had to.

Another change he noticed was that, whenever he left her around and kept himself from her peripheral, he would either hear her singing something softly to herself in a tone that made shivers call up his spine or be so silently still. 

Either of those changes sparked an unease he started to feel more around her. 

The singing of her voice, the sounds and notes she produced so softly like a breath, nagged at memories of the fight against the Heartless in the town square. It wasn’t like they were the exact same, but something reminisced between what he remembered and what he heard. 

Like Harmony was mourning the fallen Heartless.

The still silence from her made him especially unnerved after having spent nearly a month in this world. Silence just wasn’t really a _thing_ here, besides the stories he heard of Silence. But hearing stories about the creation of the Song and the different roles wasn’t the same as watching silently himself as Harmony would sometimes sit in her room and just not make a single sound. 

That was almost too much to witness, usually making a soft noise to startle the sound back into Harmony. When he did, she would look to him and speak, breaking the silence over herself. Sora was glad ever time to hear it break, because a sinking worry sat in his stomach every time he waited and wondered.

Would Harmony break the silence?

Or would the Silence break her instead?

So, that’s why he suggested after the two full days of doing nothing besides remaining indoors to have Rhythm and Beat visit Symposia-Operani and them both. At first, Harmony was hesitant to do so, though with enough prodding from her older sister and added support from Sora, she finally agreed. The twins sounded excited to come visit, which made Sora feel a little better about this idea. He just hoped that their happiness and joy would help Harmony as well.

On the way to the Stave Lines train station, he kept an eye out for anyone or anything that was suspicious. Normally, he wouldn’t have been so worried or concerned, but with the lack of his usual friends to watch his back and making sure to keep Harmony safe, it made him be even more vigilant.

Getting to the station, greeting the twins, and heading back to Harmony’s house all occurred without a single beat out of place. Sora felt relieved that nothing had happened, which apparently Beat took more as him being glad that they were there to hang out together again. Sora didn’t correct him, knowing it was best to keep what happened quiet, for now. 

Sora still glanced occasionally over to Harmony to see how she was doing. While she talked with Rhythm, it appeared she was in better spirits. That eased even more of the previous worry he had felt. 

Maybe things just needed to settle back down before they could continue forward.

Sora continued to think that on the way back and up until they reached Harmony’s home. 

What changed his thought about that was when Harmony’s footsteps began to slow and soon stopped before her own front door. She was staring hard at the wood, almost as though she was trying to see pass it to the inside. Even the twins found that strange, nudging her with their elbows and trying to get her to talk. When she didn’t answer either of them back, they both turned to Sora to get answers from him. Being put on the spot like that wasn’t something he enjoyed, but he tried for Harmony’s sake.

“Come on, Harmony,” he softly prodded her, reaching forward and opening the door, “we should play that musical beats game you suggested for us to play.”

The moment Sora stepped inside the small house, still talking and coaxing Harmony into her own home, his steps wavered. He could almost _hear_ an audible **THRUM** that passed through the air and inside of him. His feet continued forward, but every part of him wanted to resist moving forward until he figured out what that was.

Apparently, Harmony felt the same way with a pale, caged look on her face as they all made it just a few steps inside the home.

“Oh, there she is! Harmony, everyone, come in here to greet our guest.”

All four teens turned their heads towards the open doorway to the living room to their left, soon glancing to each other before heading inside. There the rest of the household sat in armchairs or the couch, along with the “guest” spoken of.

“Hello, cousin. It has been...a while since we last visited each other,” the stranger greeted with an almost too cheerful tone of voice and a smile that pulled hard on the corners of their mouth. They then reached up to tuck a loose strand of similarly dark hair behind their ear.

“It really has been awhile, Syncopation,” Melody spoke up in her sister’s stead, gaining a brief glance over to her from the stranger, “nearly five years, if I remember correctly. Time sure does fly by with a busy life.”

Syncopation nodded their head in agreement. “It sure does.”

Sora watched this stranger, Syncopation, for the most part. However, his attention strayed away when he noticed the small jerk of Harmony’s hand. As though she was about to lift it up but stopped to keep it at her side. He glanced up to her face to see a tightly guarded look taken the place of any familial joy or pleasant politeness for the guest.

In return, Syncopation continued to hold that grin on their face and spoke with Melody still, “The reason for this visit, Melody, isn’t just of seeing my family. Oh, I do miss those days, but I do know that those memories carry a certain sadness that I’m sure you can understand. It has also been five years since anyone last saw Euterpe-”

The name wasn’t familiar to Sora, never having heard it before while he had been staying here. But his answer as to why came shortly enough with the haunted voice of Harmony’s next to him.

“What about my mother?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leaving it on such a cliffhanger, I really did not learn anything from my middle school and high school writing days. But, oh well, y'all will just have to wait and find out what happens next!


End file.
